"I read all biographies with intense interest. Even a man
without a heart, like Cavendish, I think about, and read
about, and dream about, and picture to myself in all
possible ways, till he grows into a living being beside me,
and I put my feet into his shoes, and become for the time
Cavendish, and think as he thought, and do as he did."
--GEORGE WILSON.

"My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long-past years;
Their virtues love, their faults condemn;
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind."--SOUTHEY.

A man may usually be known by the books he reads, as well as by the
company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of
men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of
books or of men.

A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same to-day
that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and
cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of
adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness;
amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in
age.

Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they
have for a book--just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the
admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb,
"Love me, love my dog." But there is more wisdom in this: "Love me, love
my book." The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think,
feel, and sympathise with each other through their favourite author.
They live in him together, and he in them.

"Books," said Hazlitt, "wind into the heart; the poet's verse slides
into the current of our blood. We read them when young, we remember them
when old. We read there of what has happened to others; we feel that it
has happened to ourselves. They are to be had everywhere cheap and good.
We breathe but the air of books. We owe everything to their authors, on
this side barbarism."

A good book is often the best urn of a life, enshrining the best
thoughts of which that life was capable; for the world of a man's life
is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the
best books are treasuries of good words and golden thoughts, which,
remembered and cherished, become our abiding companions and c